Ebola virus best way to kill billions and save world: ecologist

[SevenSeasJim]

Ebola virus best way to kill billions and save world: ecologist

Last Updated Tue, 04 Apr 2006 18:13:08 EDT

CBC News

A respected Texas scientist says the best way to kill 90 per cent of the people on the planet and save the world is the Ebola virus.

"HIV is too slow," Eric Pianka said. "It's no good."

Biology professor Eric Pianka is known as the 'doomsday ecologist' for his controversial views on population growth. (Courtesy Eric Pianka)

Pianka, a 67-year-old biology professor at the University of Texas in Austin, can't understand why people object to his views.

"I don't bear any ill will towards anybody," Pianka said as he discussed the death threats, the jeering and the protests since his views became public last week. "I've got two granddaughters, man. I'm putting money in a college fund for my granddaughters. I'm worried about them."

He doesn't want to harm anybody, said Pianka, who has since backed off somewhat from his original comments. He just believes that the world has far too many people. The population of the world is estimated at six billion.

"What we really need to do is start thinking about controlling our population before it's too late," he told the Associated Press. "It's already too late, but we're not even thinking about it. We're just mindlessly rushing ahead breeding our brains out."

Labelled the "doomsday ecologist," Pianka is a latter-day Thomas Malthus, the 19th-century British economist who said there were too many people in the world. Malthus wanted to control human breeding to prevent overpopulation and starvation, ideas that were picked up 200 years later by the Chinese government.

Pianka approves of Chinese theories on birth control. But he goes one step further and advocates the use of the Ebola virus to kill off the world's surplus people.

"If we don't control our population, microbes will," he said. "Why do we have these lethal microbes that kill us in the first place? The answer is, there's too many of us."

Starvation and war will inevitably decimate the world's population, he says. But diseases, such as the Ebola virus, offers the most efficient and fastest way to "kill the billions that must soon die if the population crisis is to be solved."

Pianka's unique view of the world extends to his own personality. His website shows an elderly man standing in the scrub of central Texas with a tangled grey beard, ragged clothing and a four-foot long monitor lizard.

He has even pre-written his obituary, presumably in case he's first in line for the Ebola virus.

The website shows a man who has unique views on the world, but is also a highly-respected scientist.

He describes himself as "The Lizard Man." He says he became a cripple at the age of 13 when he set off a bazooka shell that he picked up on an army base and developed gangrene in his leg. He also spent 10 years as a hermit in the desert and he lives with a herd of bison.

But he went on to become an eminent, award-winning scientist with 20 books and hundreds of scientific papers under his belt, studies at Ivy League Princeton University and positions on a host of scientific boards.

He has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fulbright Senior Research Fellow. He was even made a Distinguished Texas Scientist by the eminent Texas Academy after giving a speech earlier this year on his population ideas.

Pianka's views have caused a stir in Austin, where he studies lizards at the local university.

"We have a lot of different points of view on the University of Texas at Austin campus. And we certainly support our faculty in saying what they think," said Don Hale, spokesman for the University of Texas.

"They have the right to express their point of view," he said. "But they're expressing their personal point of view."

I can't say I disagree.

[Magnum]

Life is harsh, but the truth is the truth. Many of these disease that have mutated and appeared in the last few decades, are the earths way of thinning out the population, so it survives. Natural selection in the new millenium.

Solution: Stop having babies everytime you fuck, and wrap it up, get abotrtions if needed. Throw those ancient morals out the window, and think of the grand eco picture. The worlds needs trump your little religion. Stop being so self centered.

Magnum fully expects an oslaught or reactyive opinion, but I may still be drunk too.

Edited April 5, 2006 by Guest

[bouche]

The Prof in question has had some threats since that story broke and is now pushing that his points are taken WAY out of context. He did not mean to advocate the destruction of 90% of the human population, but that he felt at this point it seems to be the only viable solution.

[mattm]

I think we should move to mars rather than kill everyone. It's bigger and I saw in a movie called Total Recall that there is a giant alien machine under the surface that will create air so we have nothing to worry about.

[SevenSeasJim]

Will Arnold still be there?

[deranger]

"See you at the party Ricktah."

[Calamity Jane]

yeah...I'm wondering how much his remarks are out of context/manipulated. It's one thing to say these bugs are gonna take us down (and solve the planet's overpopulation problems) and quite another to ADVOCATE using them to kill off 90% of us....? Anyone else have images from the movie "12 Monkeys" running through their heads?

I read "Hot Zone" years agao (non-ficiton; about the discovery of Ebola) scary, scary, SCAREE!!!

hope y'all are washing your hands Howard-Hughes-like...all day and every day!!! prevention is actually THAT simple.

[phorbesie]

hot zone is crazy. sounds like the most horrible way to die...your organs pretty much melt into black goo.

i wonder how that scientist will feel if his little grandaughters contract ebola? hmmm...

[badams]

I think we should move to mars rather than kill everyone. It's bigger and I saw in a movie called Total Recall that there is a giant alien machine under the surface that will create air so we have nothing to worry about.

Mars is half the size of Earth but I can't argue about the giant alien air breathing machine

[mattm]

I think we should move to mars rather than kill everyone. It's bigger and I saw in a movie called Total Recall that there is a giant alien machine under the surface that will create air so we have nothing to worry about.

Mars is half the size of Earth but I can't argue about the giant alien air breathing machine

hehehe, don't I look smart

[badams]

Hey, I think if that machine is there we should start building a ship right now.

If Ebola doesn't get us something else surely will.

[Velvet]

I recently played devils advocate in an argument with a fairly serious environmentalist and I suggested the best solution for the planet would be destruction of all humans. Though he agreed it would be the most beneficial thing that could happen to Earth, he still thought it was a bad idea.

I told him he was part of the problem.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

... and he replied 'so are you'

[badams]

I recently played devils advocate in an argument with a fairly serious environmentalist and I suggested the best solution for the planet would be destruction of all humans. Though he agreed it would be the most beneficial thing that could happen to Earth, he still thought it was a bad idea.

I told him he was part of the problem.

I think that the Earth will take care of itself eventually.

Humans are capable of many things but one day there may be a plague that sneaks up on us or one that we just can't contain.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

next festival i go to i'm selling tinfoil hats and telling people to get as wasted as possible and at midnight concentrate on sending a collective message to outer space to 'come get us'

[badams]

next festival i go to i'm selling tinfoil hats and telling people to get as wasted as possible and at midnight concentrate on sending a collective message to outer space to 'come get us'

Why wait for a festival? Lets put that plan into action today.

[LJFH]

Did anyone ever read "The Stand" or more recently "Cell" by Steven King?

both stories are based on something like that happening...but his are because of a biological weapon and some crazy terrorist "mind-computer wipe out" thing.

Either way, I think something like this will eventually happen...not as outrageous, but you never know.

Just like when he wrote the book "the Running man" about a "reality" tv show that took criminals and had people hunting them to their deaths. Seems like reality tv is going that way....and fast. I saw an advertisement for a program the other day about just that...only it was regular people instead of criminals and they didn't hunt them to their deaths. But who knows, once folks get bored of todays reality tv, what will they want next?

Sorry, got off on a tangent, but sometimes I think we humans are the most stupid creatures on the planet.

Edited April 5, 2006 by Guest

[Davey Boy 2.0]

I like your gumption sir. Wanna job?

I need you to fashion 1200 tinfoil hats. If i remember correctly you have a nicely shaped, average sized head- you can use it as a mold if you like.

I can only pay you though once we sell off those first 1200 units (piecework, i figure 9 cents per unit plus a $20 meal and beer allowance per day is about fair)

[Im going home Donny]

I hear ya can get a great deal on tin foil at Wally world. :crazy:

[bradm]

Sorry, got off on a tangent, but sometimes I think we humans are the most stupid creatures on the planet.

Moreso now that it looks like cockroaches make group decisions:

Cockroaches are gregarious insects (that) benefit from living in groups. It increases their reproductive opportunities, (promotes) sharing of resources like shelter or food, prevents desiccation by aggregating more in dry environments, etc. So what we show is that these behavioral models allow them to optimize group size.

Aloha,

Brad

[badams]

I like your gumption sir. Wanna job?

I need you to fashion 1200 tinfoil hats. If i remember correctly you have a nicely shaped, average sized head- you can use it as a mold if you like.

I can only pay you though once we sell off those first 1200 units (piecework, i figure 9 cents per unit plus a $20 meal and beer allowance per day is about fair)

I've already made 2. 1198 to go.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

i owe you 18 cents and 2/3 of a beer

[badams]

I just booked a wind tunnel to test these babies out. We don't want them blowing off peoples heads just as we are sending the message out.

[bradm]

next festival i go to i'm selling tinfoil hats and telling people to get as wasted as possible and at midnight concentrate on sending a collective message to outer space to 'come get us'

Uh, wouldn't the tinfoil reflect the message back, making it bounce around inside the senders' heads? I'd think you'd want more of a "collar" kind of thing (like what animals sometimes have to wear around their necks, to prevent them from getting at healing woulds on their heads/necks), lined with tinfoil, to reflect the message up, kind of like a parabolic dish.

Aloha,

Brad

[Davey Boy 2.0]

badams- i think it's time we had a little chat about reigning in expenses.

bradm- metal is a conductor, so the hat is the conduit to the cosmos. i would have expected a man of your learning and resources to know this. Stinkin Queens grads

Edited April 5, 2006 by Guest
beer & footy